Windows 10: The anti-Windows 8

While we’re heard plenty of complaints about Windows 10 when it comes to Microsoft’s privacy policies, that hasn’t stopped people from installing the new software on their PCs at a truly impressive rate. The newest data from NetMarketShare shows that Windows 10 has already been installed on 5.2% of desktop computers, which is all the more remarkable when you consider Windows 10 had a market share of 0.0% just one month earlier.

Yes, it helps that Windows 10 is a free upgrade for Windows 7 and Windows 8 users — NetMarketShare’s numbers show that both older operating systems lost market share over the past month, which indicates Microsoft has done a good job of pitching the software to longtime users. But even so, let’s just compare this to the launch of Windows 8 where it accounted for under 2% of desktop computers two full months after its launch in 2013.

PCWorld also cites some numbers from StatCounter that show Windows 10 adoption has outpaced Windows 7 adoption when it was first released. Again, it greatly helps that Windows 10 is a free upgrade but we should also remember that people once flocked to Windows 7 in droves to escape the disaster that was Vista. And once again, we see that Windows 8’s adoption rate was pitifully low in the early days.